Adventures in Cookinghttps://adventuresincooking.com
Seasonal Cooking + Lifestyle Blog by Eva Kosmas FloresSat, 14 Sep 2019 15:47:29 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.11https://adventuresincooking.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/favicon-150x150.pngAdventures in Cookinghttps://adventuresincooking.com
3232150032944Grape + Fig Summer Salad with Prosciutto and Balsamichttps://adventuresincooking.com/grape-fig-summer-salad-with-prosciutto-and-balsamic/
https://adventuresincooking.com/grape-fig-summer-salad-with-prosciutto-and-balsamic/#respondWed, 11 Sep 2019 14:57:44 +0000https://adventuresincooking.com/?p=23266My grape vine is bursting at the seams with fresh grapes, so I’ve been making this grape and fig summer salad on repeat for the past month. I love it because it’s so easy to put together, and just involves laying down a bed of ricotta on a big plate, then stacking all the prosciutto ...]]>

My grape vine is bursting at the seams with fresh grapes, so I’ve been making this grape and fig summer salad on repeat for the past month. I love it because it’s so easy to put together, and just involves laying down a bed of ricotta on a big plate, then stacking all the prosciutto and fruits on top, drizzling with honey and balsamic, then finishing with flake sea salt. That’s it! It takes about 10 minutes to make, including slicing up the figs and the pluots, and is worth every brief moment of effort.

As for me, I’m getting ready for a long stretch of time out of town. I’ll be gone for a month this time, hosting a photography workshop in Croatia, then in Ireland, and then hosting a retreat for my Mastermind gals in central Oregon. I’m so excited for the workshops + the retreat, but am a bit anxious about packing for that long of a trip. I hope I don’t forget anything important! I’ve been making lists in google drive whenever things come to mind, so fingers crossed I remember to bring all the important stuff.

One more note on the grape and fig summer salad—I’ve been dairy-free recently for health reasons so I used Kite Hill’s almond-based ricotta for this recipe, but obviously normal ricotta works wonderfully, too! If you go the vegan route, I recommend adding a tablespoon or two of non-dairy milk to the ricotta and mixing it in to make it wetter and creamier. I find the texture to be more like that or regular ricotta after a bit more moisture is added in 🙂 Enjoy it, my friends!

P.S. The lovely spoons + cake stand in this post are from Bean Pole Pottery. Much love to her + her beautiful pieces!

Grape and Fig Summer Salad with Prosciutto and Balsamic

4 ounces ricotta

2 ounces prosciutto (thinly sliced)

3/4 pound grapes

6 ripe fresh figs (cut into halves or quarters)

4 ripe pluots (cut into sixths)

1 tablespoon honey ((if using thick raw honey, heat it slightly to make it drizzleable))

2 teaspoons quality balsamic

1 1/2 teaspoons flake sea salt

2 tablespoons small fresh basil leaves

Evenly spread the ricotta over the center of a large serving platter, leaving about a 1-inch border around the edge of the dish.

Roll up each slice of prosciutto individually and set it aside.

Arrange the grapes, figs, pluots, and prosciutto on top of the ricotta. Drizzle with the honey, then the balsamic. Sprinkle with the flake sea salt and basil and serve immediately.

]]>https://adventuresincooking.com/grape-fig-summer-salad-with-prosciutto-and-balsamic/feed/023266Fermented Hot Saucehttps://adventuresincooking.com/fermented-hot-sauce/
https://adventuresincooking.com/fermented-hot-sauce/#commentsThu, 29 Aug 2019 22:42:45 +0000https://adventuresincooking.com/?p=23189Summertime is pepper time, and with all this spicy bounty it’s the perfect time to whip up some homemade fermented hot sauce. It’s incredible easy to make—don’t let yourself be scared by the fact that you have to let some things sit in a jar for a a few days at room temperature to make ...]]>

Summertime is pepper time, and with all this spicy bounty it’s the perfect time to whip up some homemade fermented hot sauce. It’s incredible easy to make—don’t let yourself be scared by the fact that you have to let some things sit in a jar for a a few days at room temperature to make it happen. This fermentation process is super simple, and just involves combining chopped peppers with some crushed garlic and salt water in a jar. There’s some equipment you’ll need to do it properly, and I have it outlined in the paragraph below as well as in the recipe box, but it’s very inexpensive and some of it you might already have in your kitchen (a wide mouth mason jar, to be exact).

The Fermentation Process

For fermented hot sauce, this type of fermentation process is called lacto fermentation, because we’re encouraging the growth of food-preserving and beneficial lactic acid bacteria. All fruits and vegetables have lactic acid bacteria on their exterior. It’s a naturally occurring bacteria that exists all over the world, just like yeast. Lactic acid bacteria thrive in environments where dangerous bacteria don’t, basically low-oxygen and salt-rich environments. So, by submerging the vegetables under a brine solution (aka salty water), you’re providing the perfect habitat for that lactic acid bacteria to take off and grow. As they reproduce, they excrete lactic acid, hence their name. Lactic acid is sour and tart—since it’s an acid, and it tastes kind of like vinegar, but with a more complex flavor and the added bonus of probiotics.

In addition to releasing lactic acid, the lactic acid bacteria also excrete carbon dioxide as they ferment, which is why you need an air lock on top of your fermentation vessel to let the air out. If you don’t, the increasing pressure inside the fermentation vessel could cause the jar to break. I’ll talk more about air locks below under ‘equipment’, as well as what a healthy fermentation looks like.

Remember how dangerous bacteria don’t like being away from oxygen? Well, it’s precisely this reason that you need a weight on top of your veggies to keep them submerged underneath the brine, so that way any bad bacteria suffocates and dies immediately. The best way to limit any bad bacteria is to have clean equipment in the first place, so make sure to wash the jars, lids, weight, and air lock very well, as well as the knife and cutting board you use to cut the veggies. I like to boil or steam any glass equipment like the jars and the weights for 5 minutes beforehand.

So, the basics are that you put your veggies in a clean jar, fill it with brine, place a weight on top of them to keep them and the weight submerged, put an air lock lid on top, and let it sit out of direct sunlight at room temperature to ferment anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. I’ve let my hot sauce ferment anywhere from 1 week to 3 months, with the flavor getting slightly funkier and more garlicky as it sits longer.

Fermenting is a great way of preserving the nutrients of the peppers and garlic themselves because you’re *not* heat processing them, but letting them ferment at room temperature. When you make “pickled” veggies by boiling them in jars with vinegar, it destroys a lot of heat-sensitive vitamins like Vitamin C and any bacteria, good or bad, that existed on the vegetable. Lactic acid, however, is an excellent natural preservative and probiotic that keeps the food fresh in the brine while discouraging the growth of dangerous decompositional bacteria that don’t like acidic environments. A win for the digestive system and the tastebuds!

Equipment

So, what will you need to make fermented hot sauce? I like to use a 32-ounce wide mouth mason jar as my fermentation vessel for a few reasons. It’s easy to clean and is obvious when it’s still dirty, since it’s glass and you can see inside of it. This also allows you to watch the fermentation process from the outside, which is really fun. Plus you can see if anything weird happens to the peppers or the brine. I’ll talk about it in detail later on, but basically a cloudy brine is normal, but you don’t want to see any mold growing on top of the liquid or any weird color changes going on in there, aside from green peppers turning from vibrant green to dull green. Since you’re fermenting in a glass jar, it’s super easy to keep an eye on the progress.

You will also need glass fermentation weights. You set these on top of the packed pepper mixture and brine inside the jar to help keep the veggies submerged under the brine. You don’t want any of the veggies to be in contact with the air at all, they should *always* be underneath the liquid, as should the weight to discourage any fungal or mold contamination. some folks fill up plastic bags with water and set those on top as weights, but I prefer these glass ones because they’re infinitely reusable, easy to clean/sterilize in the dishwasher or in boiling water, and won’t leech out any weird BPA or endocrine disruptors into the brine the way plastics do.

Lastly, you’ll need an air lock lid for your mason jar. I like using these because they’re clear and dishwasher safe. They are plastic, but since they’re not in direct contact with the brine there is very little risk of any plastic contamination with the hot sauce.

What Healthy Fermentation Looks Like

A healthy fermented hot sauce will start with a clear brine the first one to three-ish days, and it will then typically turn cloudy, which is totally normal. It may clear up a little again, or it may remain cloudy, or the cloud may settle on top of the glass weight like in the image above. All of these are fine. The thing you want to avoid is any severe discoloration of the vegetables, or molds or fungus growing in the jar or on top of the brine. Most vegetables fade in color as they ferment, especially green veggies which tend to become a much less saturated and more muted green (like the green peppers in this hot sauce). But if your veggies make a drastic change from green to purple or red to blue, that’s a sign that something is wrong.

The jars will also be fragrant as they’re fermenting, kind of like a cozy garlic smell, which is also normal. I’ve never had an issue with fermentation at home, and have made lots of ferments of peppers, kimchi, sauerkraut, and green tomatoes. Honestly, as long as you wash your equipment well it’s pretty difficult to mess this up. People have been fermenting foods for hundreds (if not thousands) of years—you can do this, I promise! Just keep it out of direct sunlight in a dry place at room temperature as it’s fermenting and you’re good.

Fermented Hot Sauce

Making homemade fermented hot sauce is incredibly easy and super simple, and tastes SO much better than the store-bought stuff! Feel free to play around with different hot pepper varieties, you can even mix and match with adding a few sweet peppers in to help make a more mild sauce, too. Just make sure the vessels and equipment you use for fermenting are totally clean, but only use food-safe cleaners like dish soap to clean them (no harsh cleaners, obviously). I personally just boil the glass jays and fermentation weights for about 5 to 10 minutes beforehand, take them out of the water, and let them cool to room temperature before packing them with the peppers. For more insight on the fermentation process and best-practices, you can read through the blog post above. Enjoy, my friend!

Fermented Hot Sauce

4 cups warm water

4 teaspoons salt

1 pound fresh hot chili peppers

4 garlic cloves (peeled and crushed)

Equipment

1 32 ounce wide mouth mason jar

1 glass wide mouth fermentation weight

1 wide mouth mason jar air lock lid

To prepare the brine, whisk together the water and salt in a medium bowl until the salt has dissolved completely. Set it aside.

Remove and discard the caps of the chilies. Cut them in half lengthwise, then cut into roughly 4-inch long pieces. For a slightly milder sauce, remove the seeds, for a spicier sauce, leave them in.

Toss together the garlic and chilies in a bowl, then place them in the mason jar, pushing down on the contents to try and fit as many peppers as you can, leaving about a 1-inch gap between the top of the jar and the top of the pepper pile.

Pour the brine into the jar until it's level with the peppers. Place the glass fermentation weight on top of the peppers and push down to help compact the peppers a bit more. Ideally, you want about 1 inch of space between the top of the glass weight and the top of the jar—you can remove some pepper pieces if needed to lower it a bit.

Once you have 1-inch of headspace, add more brine to the jar until the weight is just covered and submerged in the brine.

Screw on the airlock lid, with the airlock assembled according to the manufacturer's directions. **Make sure** that the bottom tip of the air lock DOESN'T touch or get submerged in the brine. It should be exposed to the air in the 1-inch of headspace at the top of the jar. If it is submerged, it will not be able to vent the CO2 properly.

Store at room temperature out of direct sunlight and allow to ferment for at least 5 days, and up to several weeks. The brine will turn cloudy (read the signs of a healthy fermentation above for more details).

When you're ready to enjoy your hot sauce, remove the air lock cap, remove the glass weight, and empty the mixture into a blender. Puree at medium speed until your desired consistency is reached (I like mine a little chunkier, but if you want it silky smooth like sriracha just keep on blendin').

Store in clean glass bottles and keep refrigerated.

]]>https://adventuresincooking.com/fermented-hot-sauce/feed/423189Raspberry Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icinghttps://adventuresincooking.com/raspberry-cupcakes/
https://adventuresincooking.com/raspberry-cupcakes/#commentsFri, 26 Jul 2019 19:20:40 +0000https://adventuresincooking.com/?p=22854With summer in full-swing, there’s no shortage of tasty berries to be found. My raspberry bushes are just finishing up their first crop of berries for the season (I should get one more batch in September, yay!) and I wanted to bake something with them. I love the way cream cheese and the sweet/tart flavor ...]]>

With summer in full-swing, there’s no shortage of tasty berries to be found. My raspberry bushes are just finishing up their first crop of berries for the season (I should get one more batch in September, yay!) and I wanted to bake something with them. I love the way cream cheese and the sweet/tart flavor of raspberries pair together, so I made these raspberry cupcakes with a raspberry cream cheese buttercream to share with you all.

The raspberries are folded and baked into the batter, making for juicy bursts of fresh raspberries in each bite. The buttercream requires freeze-dried raspberries, which are each to order online. I recommend getting them whole and tossing them in a blender to pulse them into a fine powder. This powder is like raspberry concentrate and adds a punch of flavor to whatever you toss it into, which in our case is some tasty cream cheese buttercream. You can make the frosting without the raspberry powder, too, and just have a simple cream cheese icing, but I really love the extra oomph of raspberry taste that comes through with the duo cake-icing combo. Raspberry cupcakes FTW!

If you’ve noticed the difference in hue of the raspberries in these photos, that’s because I grow a couple different kinds of raspberry bushes in the garden. One is a more traditional standard red raspberry, and the other is a beautifully hued salmon-colored berry known as ‘fall gold’ raspberry. They taste completely identical, but just have slightly different colors. I noticed that my fall golds tend to be a bit more on the peachy-salmon side than the gold-yellow one, and I wonder if it’s something to due with the acidity of the soil in the garden? I know it affects the color of hydrangeas, but maybe it also affects fruit colors, too? I need to do some more investigating on this one.

As for what’s next, I have some figs that are nearly ripe on the branches of my fig tree, and am SO incredibly excited because this is the first year they’ve actually produced figs. I’ve been watering + nurturing them for almost 3 years, so getting the first reward in the form of the literal fruits of my labor is pretty invigorating. Needless to say, there will definitely be a fig-centric dish coming to the blog later this summer 🙂

Raspberry Cupcakes with Raspberry Cream Cheese Buttercream

This delicious vanilla batter contains juicy bursts of fresh raspberries baked into each cupcake. It's topped with a silky raspberry and cream cheese buttercream, which gets its natural pink hue and fruity flavor from freeze dried raspberries. It's hard to find freeze dried raspberry powder, so I recommend getting them whole and then toss them in a blender or food processor and blender them into a fine powder. You'll love them in the buttercream and they'll open up a whole new world of frosting flavor for you!

Raspberry Cupcakes

2 3/4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

9 tablespoons butter (softened)

3 eggs (room temperature)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons whole milk (room temperature)

8 ounces fresh raspberries

Raspberry Cream Cheese Buttercream

1 cup unsalted butter (softened)

1 cup cream cheese (softened)

2 cups powdered sugar

3 ounces freeze dried raspberries (blended into a fine powder using a blender or food processor)

Raspberry Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line two standard muffin pans with cupcake liners and set them aside.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl until combined. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the sugar and butter at medium low speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract.

With the mixer going at low speed, alternate between adding the milk and the flour mixture in three increments until *just* combined. Turn off the mixer and fold the raspberries into the batter.

Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 full of batter and place the muffin pans in the oven. Bake until very lightly golden around the edges and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out without any batter on it (some fresh raspberry goop is fine).

Remove the pan from the oven and set on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the pan and allow the cupcakes to cool completely on the wire rack.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Buttercream

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and cream cheese at medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Reduce the speed to low and add the powdered sugar and the powdered freeze dried raspberries, mixing until incorporated. Increase the speed to medium and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes.

Ice the cupcakes either by hand or using a pastry bag (I decorated these using a star tip with a .63″ opening). Serve immediately. Will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3 days.

]]>https://adventuresincooking.com/raspberry-cupcakes/feed/822854Homestead Update | Summer 2019https://adventuresincooking.com/homestead-update-summer-2019/
https://adventuresincooking.com/homestead-update-summer-2019/#commentsThu, 18 Jul 2019 15:35:41 +0000https://adventuresincooking.com/?p=23005It’s been so long since I’ve written about what’s going on at the homestead…time just really got away from me the past year. I also tend not to want to write unless there’s anything new going on, and since progress on land restoration work requires patience, I wanted to wait until I had several things ...]]>

It’s been so long since I’ve written about what’s going on at the homestead…time just really got away from me the past year. I also tend not to want to write unless there’s anything new going on, and since progress on land restoration work requires patience, I wanted to wait until I had several things to share. The last time I wrote, we’d just signed all the papers and the homestead was officially ours. Everything was new and a little up in the air, and we were still getting to know the land. After seeing it in every season now, it feels more like an old friend, and we’re slowly getting to know the nooks, bends, and bumps of the place.

The First Year in Seasons

We set up wildlife cams there last summer and let them run all year long. We had some really great elk sightings, saw some cute deer on multiple occasions, and captured a mature black bear last year and a baby black bear this spring (both times they were walking towards the natural water spring at the homestead). In August we camped out and watched the Perseid meteor shower, but true to Pacific Northwest form, the clouds rolled in and blocked most of the night sky. However, there was a small patch of clear sky near the horizon, and we got to see a few meteors pass in there which was really special. Then August came and went, and in September I got Jeremy a native Oregon white oak tree for our anniversary, and we planted it at the top of a hill at the homestead. Then autumn arrived, and the green foliage that had sprung up and coated the ground slowly faded to gold, orange, red, and then finally, brown.

At Christmastime we bought a living blue spruce tree and decorated it as our Christmas tree, and then planted it outside at the homestead once Christmas had passed. This ended up being trickier than we’d originally thought, because the earth is so dense and clay-like from the intense amount of soil compaction that took place during the logging process. Trying to dig in wet clay is a nightmare, it sticks to your shovel so every time you bring up some clay you have to scrape your shovel off. It took us a couple hours to dig a hole 3 feet wide by 18 inches deep, and I was *covered* with mud from slipping and sliding around in it trying to scoop clay out of the ground with my hands while Jeremy shoveled. We got the tree in and it is still thriving, but we’re definitely going to get a smaller tree this Christmas so we don’t have to dig a hole quite that large.

Over the winter there was a huge snowstorm that blanketed the frozen ground in a foot-deep bed of snow, and we couldn’t make it up the steep driveway to check on the homestead because the plow had dumped the snow off the highway and into our gravel driveway in an icy 3-foot high lump. So, we drove to the neighborhood that borders our land and peeked at it from afar. It was soooooo quiet, even more than usual, since there wasn’t much wildlife about and the snow muffled any sound. Even from a distance, we could see deer tracks in the snow around where we’d planted our blue spruce, like they were checking it out and investigating.

Once the snow melted and the earth thawed, we went up for another visit and got to see a couple beautiful shots from the wild life cam, one of some deer wandering about in the snow, and another of the crazy snowstorm in action (there’s usually the Columbia river and mountains in the distance but it was a white out from all the snow). Spring came again, and suddenly the land was alive again with birds, greenery, and all forms of earthly life. It was so heart-warming to see it in it’s first year of a full circle of seasons, I imagine it’s a lot like what a mother feels like after watching her child grow during its first year of life.

Our Main Task: Soil Restoration

As for projects, in the past year we had some biochar made at the property from the slash piles the logging company left behind. If you’re unfamiliar with slash piles, they’re basically huge piles of branches, twigs, pine needles, and other woody debris left over from the logging process. There’s probably about a dozen or so of them at the homestead, which means a lot of half-rotted wood to be utilized. Biochar is a great way to do this, since it burns wood low and slow to create a type of charcoal that can be used as an excellent soil amendment.

Biochar, like charcoal, is incredibly porous, so the idea is to mix biochar with compost, and spread that around on the ground to enrich the soil with nutrients. The biochar absorbs the nutrients from the compost, and then slowly releases it into the soil over time as it degrades. Whereas if you just put straight compost on the ground, all the nutrients are released at once in one big dose. So using biochar helps provide sustained and steady nutrients to the soil for a longer period of time. We have a good amount of it now, and are going to wait until we do a big compost spread to utilize it.

There are two areas that I want to actually landscape, and they total about 1 acre out of the 29. The rest of the land will be left natural wild forest. The two areas we’ll landscape will be a vegetable garden and an orchard, and this year we worked on some soil restoration work in those two spots in several ways. Before I dive in, though, I want to explain what soil compaction is and why it is so damaging. Good soil has little pockets of air in it. These air pockets make the soil lighter, and make it easier for the tender roots of plants to break through it and grow deep strong roots where they can stay nice and damp. Imagine the texture of a meringue vs a normal cake batter—it’s kind of like that.

Soil gets air pockets in two main ways: from insects like earthworms, and from beneficial soil bacteria. Earthworms wiggle their way through the ground, and help break it apart as they do so, leaving little helpful worm poops behind to keep the earth fertilized. Soil bacteria breaks down organic matter in the soil, like bits of twigs, leaves, and deceased bug/animal bits. As they break the organic matter down, they release gases in the process, which help create little air pockets in the soil, helping it stay light and fluffy.

Clover + Radish Ground Cover Sprouts

When you have the incredibly heavy machinery needed to log a forest, and you have the weight of thousands of tons of wood being moved around on this heavy machinery, all the soil underneath that is crushed and so are all the insects and animals that live inside of it. And the beneficial bacteria in the soil are smothered, since they need some amount of air to live + function. The earth becomes a crushed cemetery, devoid of any life, and hard as a block of potter’s clay. This is what we are dealing with in these areas.

This year, we tried sowing some ground cover seeds in the autumn, but the soil was too poor for them to grab hold and sprout. So this spring, we ordered some compost and had it delivered to the homestead (we used Dirt Hugger and they were awesome), and spread the ground cover seeds on that…and they all sprouted and came up in spades! It was really exciting to see. We did a mix of clover and a fat daikon-like radish; the clover helps add nitrogen to the soil, and the radish helps break up the compaction by growing deep into the ground and physically splitting the earth. As for the compost, it is full of nutrients and it also is bursting with good soil bacteria, so when we spread the compost around we were basically giving it a ton of vitamins and probiotics in one handy dose. We did a small patch in each area, and this autumn I really want to try and do a larger area of ground to enrich even more surface area. We shall see!

Beginning the trail in Winter 2019Working on the trail Spring 2019

More Projects

We’re also in the process of building our first trail towards our favorite viewpoint. It’s been a lot of work loading bark chips from our driveway in Portland into the back of our truck, then driving it up to the property, unloading it, and dumping it along the trail site, but we’re about 3/4 done and it looks really great! And it feels so good and sponge-y to walk on, too. It will be such a wonderful feeling once it’s done and we can run up and down the trail no problem.

We had our amazing permaculture specialist, Resilience Design, come out this spring and they made a big dent in taking out the invasive species that had encroached onto the homestead. The three they targeted were thistle, Himalayan blackberry, and scotch broom—these three plants grow at an alarmingly rapid rate and crowd out the native plant species that the wildlife of the area relies on for food and shelter. It was SO great to visit again after they’d taken those out; seeing them piled up like that and knowing that they wouldn’t be able to go to seed or spread more this year was a big weight lifted. The last thing we want is to have 30 acres of uninhabitable blackberry brambles. It’s so important to keep plants from smothering the young douglas fir trees (there are a few thousand of them on the property) while they’re still so short. Once they get several feet tall, they’ll have a better advantage against getting shaded by other plants, but until then we’ve got to keep an eye out for the invasive guys.

Invasive Scotch Broom(Don’t worry, the drill was completely off. Just REAL excited that we finished digging the hole.)

We also installed a gate at the driveway entrance after dealing with some weird theft issues (someone stole a burn barrel we’d used to burn invasive thistle seeds, and a couple plastic tubs we were storing biochar in). Because the ground out there is so hard, we thought we were being smart and rented what’s essentially a giant drill that goes into the ground and digs a hole for you. Well, the ground was so full of rocks on either side of the driveway that it didn’t actually work, so we had to set the giant heavy drill aside and just dig it out slowly with a mixture of our hands and a shovel. Jeremy would shovel, and then I’d crawl over the hole and scrape all the rocky bits out with my hands (wearing thick gardening gloves, of course). It took a while, but we did it! And now the gate is up and everything is secure and safe while we’re gone.

That’s pretty much everything we’ve been up to. It didn’t feel like a lot, but seeing it all written out like that, we definitely made a LOT of progress in the past year. I’m really excited for all the things we’ll be working on the rest of 2019 and into 2020. Places like this, that are truly wild, really teach you to be patient and take things one season at a time. I can feel the change the homestead has made in me, deep inside. It’s calmed me, and at a time when I began to tire of wandering, it gave me a place where I could lay down my roots. I don’t feel the longing for travel anymore, I only feel the longing to be home when I’m away. Every trip is harder and more difficult. I really look forward to the day when I can be home, always, and never have to leave. It’s our little slice of heaven, and I can’t wait spend forever there.

Wild Native Blackcap Berries (aka Black Raspberries)Wild Oxeye Daises

]]>https://adventuresincooking.com/homestead-update-summer-2019/feed/1923005Cherry Galette with Almond Creamhttps://adventuresincooking.com/cherry-galette-with-almond-cream/
https://adventuresincooking.com/cherry-galette-with-almond-cream/#commentsThu, 11 Jul 2019 19:11:09 +0000https://adventuresincooking.com/?p=22798Cherry season is nearing its end, and if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to get your cherry fix, then I have a little something to share. Namely, this cherry galette. Like all galettes, the technique is simple and rustic—just roll out some pastry dough and dot it with fruits before curling the ...]]>

Cherry season is nearing its end, and if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to get your cherry fix, then I have a little something to share. Namely, this cherry galette. Like all galettes, the technique is simple and rustic—just roll out some pastry dough and dot it with fruits before curling the edges back up over the juicy filling. This recipe, however, adds a little something extra to the mix. Right underneath that cherry filling lays a layer of almond cream, spread thin enough that it won’t poof up and overcome the cherries while cookies, but thick enough that you taste it in each and every tart-sweet bite.

Almond cream is very easy to make, just throw some almond meal, butter, and spices in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth and fluffy. It’s my *favorite* filling for pastries, from croissants to galettes to doughnuts…you really can’t go wrong with any sweet application of it. And the nutty and warm notes of almond work almost suspiciously well with the slightly tart and very sweet cherries. It kind of makes me wonder what nature has up her sleeve when I taste flavors like these together. You’ll just have to try this cherry galette and see for yourself 🙂 And if you’re longing for more even more cherries in your life, I have some rolls and a shrub that are calling your name…

Cherry Galette with Almond Cream

This flakey and buttery pastry crust is filled with cinnamon-spiced cherries and a layer of sweet almond cream. It bakes up to a wonderfully nutty and fruity galette and takes hardly any time to make at all, perfect for a cherry-season-staple!

Cherry Almond Filling

1/4 cup almond meal

2 tablespoons unsalted butter (room temperature)

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoon honey

1 large egg (room temperature)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

14 oz cherries (pitted and halved)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Crust

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

6 tablespoons butter (cold and hard)

3 – 5 tablespoons ice water

1 whole egg whisked with 1 teaspoon water (for egg wash)

For the crust, ​m​ix together the flour, sugar, salt, and ​cinnamon​ in a large bowl​ until combined. ​Grate the butter in the largest hole setting of your grater above the bowl, stopping to stir and coat the butter bits in the flour mixture every few minutes.

Pinch the mixture together with your fingertips until it resembles the texture of damp sand. Add the water, a tablespoon at a time, mixing it with a fork, until the dough just holds together when you squeeze a fistful of it in your hand. Pat it into a rough circle shape, cover, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

For the filling, beat together the almond meal, 1 tablespoon of the sugar, 1 tablespoon of the honey, the egg, and 1/4 teaspoon of the vanilla extract until pale and fluffy, about 3 – 5 minutes at medium speed. Set aside. In a medium bowl, toss together the cherries, remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon honey, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract, and cinnamon until the cherries are coated in the mixture.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface until it is about 13 inches in diameter. Transfer to a lipped baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Spread the almond paste filling in a thin layer across the center, leaving an empty 2-inch border around the edges of the crust. Arrange the cherries, cut side down, in concentric circles on top of the almond filling. Fold the empty crust edge over the filling, and brush the exposed folded crust with the egg wash.

Bake in the oven until the crust is golden and the cherries have wrinkled slightly, about 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

]]>https://adventuresincooking.com/cherry-galette-with-almond-cream/feed/622798Strawberry Tart with Cream Cheese Fillinghttps://adventuresincooking.com/strawberry-tart-with-cream-cheese-filling/
https://adventuresincooking.com/strawberry-tart-with-cream-cheese-filling/#commentsThu, 04 Jul 2019 04:22:14 +0000https://adventuresincooking.com/?p=22841The air in the garden has been damp and heavy with the musk from early summer thunderstorms and sun-warmed earth. On more than one occasion, we’ve had a downpour followed by a spat of intense sunshine, which encouraged white wisps of warm steam to rise from our freshly darkened soil. Along with this warm musk, ...]]>

The air in the garden has been damp and heavy with the musk from early summer thunderstorms and sun-warmed earth. On more than one occasion, we’ve had a downpour followed by a spat of intense sunshine, which encouraged white wisps of warm steam to rise from our freshly darkened soil. Along with this warm musk, the intensely sweet scent of the season’s first strawberries has filled the air, creating a distilled perfume of Oregon’s early summer. It’s this heady fragrance that encouraged me to fill my basket with the juiciest selection from the garden, and put them to use in a bright and fresh strawberry tart.

The sweet juicy flavor of my summer strawberries pairs perfectly with the slightly tart and very creamy characteristics of cream cheese, so I married the two in this strawberry tart recipe, along with a simple baked tart shell. The shell is the only part of the tart that is baked—I like keeping the cream cheese filling raw to keep it moist and fluffy, and the strawberries uncooked to preserve the cheer of their sun-kissed and summery taste. Sometimes being a good cook means knowing when to leave ingredients alone and let them shine all on their own. (Plus, I love shortening the time my oven is on in the summer.)

This tart is a breeze to throw together. Just mix some dry ingredients in a bowl, mix in some butter and water, roll it and pat it into a pan and bake. It cooks just long enough for you to do some dishes, listen to a short podcast, and peel and eat and orange with your hands while you wait. Then, take the tart crust out and let it cool. You can pop it in the fridge to make it cool down even speedier. Mix together the cream cheese filling, slice up some strawberries, throw them in the tart, and voila! You’re done. Plus, the juicy saturated pops of crimson covering the tart make it look extra-fancy and beautiful, even if all it took was slicing up some strawberries and throwing them on what’s essentially a pile of sweetened cream cheese. A victory for the un-ambitious cook within us all.

Every bite of this strawberry tart left me wanting another and another, which led me to putting down three slices after I finished photographing it. Its creamy-yet-bright flavor is the perfect combination of everything you want in a summer dessert, plus a deliciously flakey crumb in the crust. Oh! And you can serve it chilled or at room temp. (Although I prefer it chilled to help combat the oppressive heat of a humid early summer.) You can also feel free to throw on a few extra berries of other varieties if you have them on hand. (I tossed on some red currants from the garden to add a little more tartness to the tart. Their sour taste makes the sides of my mouth get all tight and pursed, and I kind of love it).

That’s pretty much it. Just make it, enjoy it, and soak up all the summer strawberries you can. It’d be a shame not to.

Strawberry Tart with Cream Cheese

This strawberry tart is as easy to make as it is lovely to look upon. It combines the bright sweetness of fresh summer strawberries with a silky coconut and cream cheese filling, all atop a buttery flakey tart shell.

Tart Crust

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon flake kosher sea salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

5 ounces butter (cold and hard)

10 to 14 tablespoons ice water

Strawberry and Cream Cheese Filling

8 ounces cream cheese (room temperature)

1/4 cup canned full fat coconut milk (room temperature)

2 to 3 tablespoons honey (depending on your sweetness preference)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

12 ounces fresh strawberries (thinly sliced)

Tart Crust

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon until blended. Cut the butter into pea sized pieces over the bowl, stopping to stir every few minutes to coat the butter pieces in the flour mixture.

Use your fingertips to pinch the butter pieces in the flour until the mixture resembles the texture of damp sand. Add the water and stir to combine, then knead the dough with your hands until it comes together, about 10 to 30 seconds. If the dough sticks together when you grab it and squeeze it in your hand, it’s fine. If it falls apart, add another tablespoon or two of water.

Transfer the dough to a clean surface, pat it into a circle, cover it, and place it in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll out the dough into a roughly 12-inch circle and transfer it to a greased 9-inch tart pan, trimming off any excess edges. Use a fork to poke holes all over it and place it in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Cover the crust with foil, pressing it into the corners to make sure it comes in contact with all of the surface of the tart. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, remove the foil, and then bake for another 10 to 15 minutes or until the edges of the tart are lightly golden. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Filling

Beat the cream cheese, coconut milk, honey, and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer at medium speed until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Empty the filling into the cooled tart shell, cover, and refrigerate for 3 hours. Top with the fresh sliced strawberries and serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate and serve chilled later on. Will keep covered in the refrigerator for about 3 days.

]]>https://adventuresincooking.com/strawberry-tart-with-cream-cheese-filling/feed/122841Pull-Apart Muffins with Cherrieshttps://adventuresincooking.com/pull-apart-muffins-with-cherries/
https://adventuresincooking.com/pull-apart-muffins-with-cherries/#commentsThu, 27 Jun 2019 13:37:14 +0000https://adventuresincooking.com/?p=22797The other day I noticed a steller’s jay darting in and out of the lumbering cherry tree in our backyard. It’s well over 30 feet tall and it was probably planted when our house was built, which means it’s about 70 years old. I noticed the branches jangling, the light reflecting off the leaves made ...]]>

The other day I noticed a steller’s jay darting in and out of the lumbering cherry tree in our backyard. It’s well over 30 feet tall and it was probably planted when our house was built, which means it’s about 70 years old. I noticed the branches jangling, the light reflecting off the leaves made them shimmer as they moved back and forth, flipping into the sun and away from it again. There was a kerfuffle going on in there, so I stepped up under the canopy of the tree and looked up to see what was going on. Standing there with my head craned towards the sky, I saw what had created the party within the animal kingdom of my backyard. The branches were bejeweled with bright red cherries, and the birds were pulling at them quite fiercely to get them off the tree.

Since our tree is so old and tall, all the fruit-bearing branches are out of reach. In years past, I’ve dragged the ladder out from the garage to reach them, but this year the cherries were still out of reach even with the ladder. So, I made a few investments. Namely, in an extendable fruit picking basket and an extendable branch trimmer. Both of these combined gave me the tools I needed to pluck some ripe cherries off the branches. A few wobbly snips later and I had one in my hand. I tore it open to check for pests before popping it in my mouth, and low and behold it had some wiggly worm friends waving hello to me as soon as I exposed the flesh. I tore open the next one, and it was the same thing. They all had worms in them (no wonder the birds loved them so much).

In the end, I went to Fred Meyer’s and bought some delicious local cherries (worm-free, I might add) off their friendly shelves. My cherry requirement needed to be filled, and if not from my tree than from some other enthusiastic pacific northwesterner’s. I wanted to put them to use in something cozy and comforting, so I made these pull apart muffins and lined the layers with juicy halved cherries, sugar and cinnamon. I love the versatility of pull apart muffins—first of all, you can stuff them with any manner of delicious things. Second, if you just want half or a quarter, it’s as easy as a gentle tug.

While the cherry season is in full swing, you can find on of my other favorite cherry recipes here, plus some photos of Ralph as a puppy! And Fred Meyer has some awesome recipe ideas here too. If you find yourself with some downtime on a weekend or evening, though, I can’t recommend making these cherry pull apart muffins highly enough. With the long and yellow days of summer, there’s not reason not to bake well into the evening hours and fill your whole home with the smell of brioche before bed. It’s what sweet dreams are made of.

Pull Apart Muffins with Cherries

Brioche Dough

2 2/3 cups bread flour

1/4 cup lukewarm milk

1 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs (whisked)

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter (softened)

Cherry Filling

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

8 ounces cherries (pitted and halved)

Begin by making the pre-ferment. In a small bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup of the flour with the yeast and warm milk until just combined. Cover and allow to rest at room temperature out of direct sunlight for 30 minutes.

In a medium bowl, mix together the remaining flour, sugar, and salt until combined. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the pre-ferment and eggs at medium low speed until combined. Reduce speed to low and add the flour mixture in 3 additions, allowing the flour to be absorbed into the dough after each addition. Turn the mixer off, cover the bowl, and let the dough rest for 15 minutes.

Switch out the paddle attachment for a dough hook and turn the mixer on to medium low speed. Add the butter in three increments, allowing the butter to become absorbed into the dough before each following addition.Once combined, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. If the dough is too sticky, knead in a bit more flour. Once the dough is smooth and supple, form into rough cylinder shape after kneading, cover, and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and grease a muffin tin.

Place the cylinder of dough on a clean working surface and roll it out until it is about 13 inches long. Use a knife to cut a tiny an indent in the center, so you have two equal sections. Repeat this with the center of each section, and again and again, until you have about 32 to 34 indents cut into the dough. Cut the dough into circular slices using the indents as a guide.

In a small shallow bowl, mix together the brown sugar, granulated sugar, and cinnamon until combined. Take 4 or 5 slices of the dough and dredge them gently in the sugar mixture to get some of it on each slice. Stack 4 to 5 slices on top of each other and then cut the stack in half down the center. Place each half in its own muffin cup, cut side down. Insert 2 to 3 cut cherry halves between the layers of each muffin.

When the muffin tin is filled, place the pan in the oven and bake until the muffins turn gold, about 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 20 minutes before serving.

I’m sharing this luxuriously silky, crazy delicious, and easy vegan cheesecake with you all today. And it’s extra delicious because of the source of its lovely lavender hue, purple sweet potatoes! They’re roasted to caramelize the natural sugars within, and then pureed with the other delicious vegan cheesecake filling ingredients like cashews, maple syrup, vegan cream cheese, vegan yogurt, cinnamon, and vanilla to create the ACTUAL best cheesecake I’ve ever had. Yep, both vegan and non-vegan. This is by far the winner.

The sweet potatoes add another level of creaminess to the cheesecake, and they contrast perfectly with the slightly salty pecan crust. I love that in every bite you get the silky smooth filling, plus a wonderful nutty crunch! The recipe itself is super easy to make, there’s just a good amount of resting time involved for hands-off activities. Like making sure to soak the cashews overnight, and letting the cheesecake firm up in the fridge before slicing, for example. Make sure to read through the recipe before you begin so you have an idea of when it will be ready to serve, especially if you’re making this for a special occasion.

Since it’s cheesecake, it keeps very well in the fridge so you can definitely make it a couple days ahead of when you plan on serving it. Although, I can’t promise you won’t be tempted to eat it all before your serving date after you smell it post-baking! Just imagine the scent of maple and roasted sweet potatoes combining with toasted pecans and slightly sweet cheesecake to create the ultimate tempting dessert smell. It’s so hard to wait the few hours for it to firm up in the fridge, guys. But you can do it! I did it (barely). (But still).

I always end up feeling kind of gross after eating regular baked cheesecake, but this leaves me feeling elated (because of the tastiness) and pleasantly full. This vegan cheesecake is also dairy free and gluten free, which makes it perfect for bringing to events with mixed dietary restrictions. Almost everyone (except those with nut allergies) can partake and revel in its majesty! If you want more vegan recipe ideas for cooking for restricted diets, you can take a look here.

There are a couple things I want to make note of with this baked cheesecake, right quick. First, I like using a bain marie in the oven to help keep the cheesecake moist and prevent cracks from forming. This just means having a pan of water in the oven on a separate rack while the cheesecake is baking. Second, I always line both the bottom and the sides of my springform pan with parchment paper. The last thing you want is the sides of the cheesecake coming off because they’re stuck on the pan. All you have to do is cut a strip of parchment paper that’s as wide as the pan is deep, and then line the inside of the pan’s sides. All of this is outlined in the recipe below, but I wanted to mention it here for good measure.

Easy Vegan Cheesecake with Sweet Potatoes

This baked vegan cheesecake is extra creamy, rich, and the most beautiful shade of lavender due to the purple sweet potatoes that add another silky and sweet element to the dish. This creamy interior contrasts perfectly with the salty and crunchy pecan crust that lines the bottom of each slice. It’s the perfect dairy free, gluten free, and vegan sweet for your table!

Pecan Crust

1/2 cup melted coconut oil

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 cups pecans (ground)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon flake sea salt

Easy Vegan Cheesecake

1 pound 3 ounces purple sweet potatoes

2 cups cashews (soaked overnight)

5 ounces coconut cream (room temperature)

1/2 cup vegan yogurt (room temperature)

1/3 cup maple syrup

8 ounces vegan cream cheese (such as Kite Hill, room temperature)

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons finely chopped pistachios (for garnish)

For the pecan crust, grease a springform pan that’s 8 inches in diameter and at least 2-1/2 inches deep with coconut oil. Line the bottom with parchment paper, and cut a 2-1/2 inch wide strip of parchment paper to line the sides of the springform pan with, as well. Set it aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the coconut oil and sugar at medium low speed until smooth. Add the pecans, cinnamon, and salt and reduce speed to low, mixing until just combined. Evenly distribute the mixture across the bottom of the springform pan, patting it into place to create a firm and even layer with your fingertips.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the sweet potatoes on a baking sheet and pierce them all over with a fork. poke all over with fork. Place them in the oven and roast until tender when pierced with a fork, about 50 to 60 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool enough you’re able to handle them comfortably, then remove the skin and discard it. Chop the sweet potato into roughly 1-inch cubes and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Move one of the racks to the lowest rack possible, and fill a medium-sized pot 3-inches deep with water and place it on the bottom rack. This will create a steam bath in the oven and help the cheesecake cook evenly and help prevent cracking.

Drain the soaked cashews and discard the soaking liquid. In a blender or food processor, blend together the cashews and coconut cream until smooth and creamy. Add the cooked peeled sweet potato, vegan cream cheese, vegan yogurt, and maple syrup and puree until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the cinnamon and vanilla extract.

Pour the mixture into the springform pan, tapping the filled pan on the counter gently to help release any air bubbles and to smooth out the surface of the cheesecake. Place the pan in the oven on the middle rack and bake until the sides are set but the center is slightly jiggly, about 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the oven door open, allowing the cheesecake to cool to room temperature in the oven over a period of two to three hours.

Place the cheesecake in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight. Run a small butter knife between the parchment paper and the sides of the springform pan to loosen any hardened coconut oil. Release the sides of the springform pan and remove it, then peel away the parchment paper from the sides of the cheesecake. Sprinkle the crushed pistachios around the edges of the cheesecake. Slice and serve immediately.

If there are any cracks, feel free to decorate the top with fresh berries or edible flowers to add some extra natural beauty to the cake. It’s a win win!

]]>https://adventuresincooking.com/easy-vegan-cheesecake-with-sweet-potatoes/feed/321697Chive and Chicken Orecchiette in Lemon Saucehttps://adventuresincooking.com/chicken-chive-orecchiette/
https://adventuresincooking.com/chicken-chive-orecchiette/#commentsThu, 30 May 2019 21:44:28 +0000https://adventuresincooking.com/?p=22235This post was made in partnership with Barilla, but all opinions are my own, per usual! Growing up in a Greek household, Mediterranean flavors were a staple at every meal. From rosemary to lemon to thyme to tomatoes, every bit of produce paired perfectly with pasta, which made it a family staple. Pasta is a ...]]>

This post was made in partnership with Barilla, but all opinions are my own, per usual!

Growing up in a Greek household, Mediterranean flavors were a staple at every meal. From rosemary to lemon to thyme to tomatoes, every bit of produce paired perfectly with pasta, which made it a family staple. Pasta is a deeply important part of the Mediterranean Diet. The Mediterranean Diet isn’t about severely limiting the food you eat or fasting or anything extreme like that. Instead, it’s a healthy way of eating, inspired by the traditional lifestyle + dietary patterns of the Mediterranean region, and can help reduce the risk of chronic diseases. It incorporates a variety of quality food groups that should be eaten often in reasonable quantities, including pasta. My go-to pasta, Barilla®, is made with few, wholesome ingredients to provide a simple and natural way to enjoy eating. It’s the perfect canvas for those delicious Mediterranean flavors like chicken orecchiette!

This dish combines several of my favorite spring ingredients from the region, and that’s lemon, rosemary, chicken, peas, and chives. I like using chicken thighs because they’re much more flavorful than the breast, but if you’re a white meat fan, you can feel free to substitute in a chicken breast instead, and just follow the cooking directions in the recipe as such. There’s something extremely comforting about the combination of chicken, lemon, and rosemary, and that makes up the basis of the light and creamy sauce the Barilla Collezione orecchiette is coated in.

If you’re unfamiliar with orecchiette, it’s a traditional type of pasta that’s shaped like a little bowl, and it perfect for scooping up and holding sauce. And in the case of this recipe, it also make an ideal vessel for little peas to rest in, almost like a pearl tucked into a shell. I also included some fresh chives from the garden, because they add the most wonderful savory herbal flavor to the dish. The little purple flowers you see are chive blossoms, but you can just use chopped fresh chives as directed in the recipe, since they have the same flavor and are much easier to find year-round.

It’s so much fun to experiment with the different seasonal flavors of the Mediterranean region—I highly recommend checking out Barilla’s Italian Recipe Builder to help you craft your own. It helps you create a Mediterranean-style recipe for 500 calories or less per serving and gives you hundreds of combinations of flavor and variety. As for size, each recipe makes about 6 to 8 servings, depending on the box size. It’s an awesome tool to help you experiment more with all the bright and delicious produce that’s out there. I can’t wait to see what you create!

Chive and Chicken Orecchiette in a Rosemary Lemon Sauce

This delicious orecchiette combines the bright flavors of spring with the nourishing taste of the Mediterranean. The sauce is made from a chevre, rosemary, and lemon base, and the orecchiette pasta is tossed in it along with peas, chives, and delicious roast chicken.

Roast Chicken

1 1/2 pounds chicken thighs (bone in skin on)

2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

Salt (to taste)

Cracked black pepper (to taste)

Roast Chicken and Chive Orecchiette with a Lemon and Rosemary Sauce

12 ounces Barilla Collezione Orecchiette

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

4 cloves garlic (minced)

Reserved pan juices from chicken

4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

4 ounces fresh chevre

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

1 cup shelled peas (fresh or frozen (thawed, if frozen))

1/4 cup chopped fresh chives

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Salt (to taste)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Rub the chicken thighs with the 2 teaspoons of olive oil and season with the salt and pepper. Place on a lipped baking sheet, skin side up, and roast in the oven until the skin is golden, the juices run clear, and a thermometer inserted into the center of the thigh reads 165 degrees Fahrenheit, about 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the chicken to cool until cool enough to handle.

Save the juices that have collected on the bottom of the lipped baking sheet and set them aside for now. Discard the chicken skin, remove the meat from the bones, and chop the meat into roughly 1-inch cubes. Discard the chicken bones and set the meat aside.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, then season generously with salt.

While the water is coming to a boil, you can prepare the sauce. Heat the 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium low heat. Add the garlic and sauté until softened and very lightly golden around the edges, about 5 minutes, stirring every minute.

The following steps should happen very quickly, so pay close attention and read ahead to be prepared. Add the orecchiette to the pot of boiling water and prepare al dente according to the package directions. When you eventually strain the pasta, make sure to reserve 3/4 cup of the water the pasta was cooked in.

While the orecchiette is cooking, add the reserved chicken pan juices and the lemon juice to the pot of garlic and whisk to combine.

Add the rosemary and lemon zest and crumble the chèvre over the sauce, stirring until the chèvre is melted. The sauce will look like it’s separated, but it will come together in a bit.

Take 3/4 cup of water from the boiling pot of pasta using a heat-proof container like a glass measuring cup. Slowly add it to the pot of sauce in a thin steady drizzle, whisking constantly, until the sauce becomes creamy.

Add the strained orecchiette, the chopped chicken, peas, chives, and black pepper to the pot of sauce and toss gently to combine and coat the pasta in the sauce. Remove from heat, salt to taste, if desired, and serve immediately.

]]>https://adventuresincooking.com/chicken-chive-orecchiette/feed/122235Lilac Syruphttps://adventuresincooking.com/lilac-syrup/
https://adventuresincooking.com/lilac-syrup/#commentsWed, 22 May 2019 13:15:49 +0000https://adventuresincooking.com/?p=22264This lilac syrup has a bit of a story behind it—the other day as I was pulling out of the driveway to head to the market, something caught my eye. It was a small bunch of lavender peeking out from over the fence of our yard, and it filled me with pure and utter joy. ...]]>

This lilac syrup has a bit of a story behind it—the other day as I was pulling out of the driveway to head to the market, something caught my eye. It was a small bunch of lavender peeking out from over the fence of our yard, and it filled me with pure and utter joy. Our lilac bush has been in our front yard long before we even owned our house. When we moved in, the butterfly bush next to it was completely overgrown and smothering the lilac, so much so that it barely had any flowers on it. After lots of delicate pruning, it’s been in really good health the past couple years.

This winter, however, the butterfly bush tilted into the lilac a bit because the ground got so soft, and there’s quite a bit of dead butterfly bush branches blocking the way to the lilac bush. I’ve been meaning to prune it but haven’t gotten around to it quite yet. The lilacs in Portland proper bloomed about 3 weeks ago, so I assumed that I somehow missed ours blooming since I couldn’t get to it easily, or that it just wasn’t having a great year due to said lack of pruning (sorry, bushes).

So, when I saw that it was loaded with flowers and looked healthy and vibrant as ever, I was beyond excited. As soon as I got back home, I grabbed my clippers, waded through the pokey butterfly bush branches, and went to town gathering the lilacs into my basket. I wanted to savor their lightly floral flavor through the season, and there’s no better way to preserve the taste and smell of this delicate bouquet like a good ol’ fashioned simple syrup.

The flavor of a good lilac syrup can be described in one simple sentence—it tastes like it smells. In another reimagining of the sentence, it’s the flavor of heaven. As for utility, this lilac syrup can be put to use in a variety of drinks + sweets. I’ve been using it in my morning matcha latte and it’s been senselessly good, but you could also put it in cocktails, other tea/coffee beverages, iced teas, and the like. You can also use it to flavor desserts like cobblers, whipped cream, and custards. The options for this lilac syrup are pretty much endless, as they should be because its delicate flavor works well with nearly any sort of fruit or sweet. Lilac syrup is also stupefyingly easy to make—it just involves bringing some water and sugar to a boil, letting it cool for a few minutes, pouring the syrup over the flowers, letting them sit, and then straining it. That’s it! It probably requires about 20 minutes of active work, the rest is just waiting for the infusion to cool.

A Few Things to Note

It’s very important that you know the source of your lilacs to make sure they’re organic and don’t have pesticides on them. If you’re getting them from the florist *make sure they’re organic* and food-grade, you don’t want to ingest any chemical stuff. I also recommend infusing them for 2 to 3 hours, but not longer. Because of the heat of the syrup and the sugar content, it can spur the natural decomposition bacteria on the flowers and result in a syrup that tastes like an old flower vase if you over-steep them. While instinct might make you think that the longer it sits, the more potent the syrup will become, nature disagrees with you. These flowers have a very delicate flavor, and it’s best to only infuse for a few hours to keep that bright fresh floral note that it has at its first whiff.

In terms of the flowers, this recipe calls for 3 cups of packed lilac flowers. This means that the small individual flowers need to be pulled from the cutting. I recommend doing this over a large bowl, you can grab a few at a time and pull and they come off very easily. Just try not to get any green bits, stem pieces, or dead flowers in the bowl. It goes by really quickly, just throw on some music or a podcast and go to town pulling away!

Lilac Syrup

This is such a wonderful way to preserve the flavors of spring. I love adding this syrup to my morning matcha latte, but I think it would be wonderful in all manner of hot tea and coffee beverages, as well as a flavor booster for whipped cream, pancakes, and lots of other goodies.

A couple things to note, though: only use lilacs from a source that you know isn’t using pesticides on their flowers. If you get them from a florist, there’s a solid chance they’ve been sprayed, so make sure to check with the florist before you prepare them for consumption. If they’re in your garden, you’re good (presuming you’re not using pesticides. If so, please stop! It’s terrible for honey bees + the environment.) Also, don’t over-steep the flowers. They can begin to decompose quickly because of the heat and the sugar, so as long as you stick to the directions below you’ll be fine. Enjoy, my friend!

Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring every few minutes.

Allow the syrup to boil for 5 minutes, then remove from heat and cool for 10 minutes.

Place the lilac blossoms in a large heat-proof pot. Pour the syrup over the blossoms, then stir to make sure they’re covered in syrup. Place the lid on the pot and let the mixture infuse for 2 to 3 hours. I’d be cautious about letting them infuse for too much longer, as the sugar in the syrup combined with the heat can speed-start the decomposition process of the flowers, and the delicate aroma and flavor of the lilacs can turn into the smell and taste of an old vase of flowers, unfortunately.

Pace a fine mesh sieve over a large bowl and pour the syrup and lilac mixture into it, straining out the blossoms. Compost the blossoms in your yard or bin. Pour the syrup into clean glass containers and seal tightly.

Refrigerate the syrup, and use to add a little flavor of spring to your sweets + beverages. I especially love this with my morning matcha latte! The syrup will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 months.